Venus Mountains: ‘A few months later, Lemmy died and we thought: “Why not write a song about him?”‘

Corte Franca, Lombardy, hard rock band Venus Mountains are working on their fifth album, which they may release next year.

The band comprises Stefano “Frax” Pezzotti (lead vocals and guitar), Lorenzo Poletti (guitar), Marco Dossi (bass) and Alfredo Montanari Trovesi (drums). Pezzotti and Dossi have been friends since high school. Montanari Trovesi joined the band this summer and Poletti a couple of years ago.

One of the most exuberant sets at Hard Rock Hell last month, they describe their whirlwind trip as ‘having landed, rocked, and lifted off again, leaving trails of stardust, riffs, and sweat across the U.K.’ They’ve been together, albeit not with the full current lineup, since 2009, when, in their words, ‘four crazy Venusians were sent to planet earth to conquer the world with a fake experiment based on hard rock music full of subliminal messages!’ They released their first album, The Birth, one year later, drawing on their inspirations The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Motörhead, Whitesnake and Mötley Crüe.

‘I thought we needed a song explaining that we’ve arrived here from Venus – we are here to conquer the world!’

Their fourth album, Mons Veneris, was released in 2023 and it’s the opening track ‘Our Spacecraft’ that best exemplifies their sound: blues-based hard rock with some great melodic touches, veering into sleaze rock like Mötley Crüe or Skid Row, with some guitar solos that lit up the stage at Hard Rock Hell. ‘What was the starting point for that song?’ Pezzotti asks the others. ‘Alfredo’s saying he doesn’t like that song (laughs). No? Alfredo, why do you not like it?’ Montanari Trovesi is laughing: ‘Oh, no, no, it’s a joke!’ Pezzotti jumps back in. ‘The real story is that in on Mon Veneris, we have many songs that talk about space but I thought we needed a song explaining that we’ve arrived here from Venus – we are here to conquer the world!’

The video for the track is filmed in a deserted location that would be the perfect landing site for a spacecraft and it turns out that they filmed it at a disused quarry in their native Lombardy. ‘We thought it would be a great location for our spaceship to land,’ Pezzotti. ‘It’s not allowed to go there but we didn’t care, we just went there anyway!’

I say that when I saw them play live last month, their energy really got the crowd going and I ask them if they write a lot of their songs with the live performance in mind. ‘It depends,’ Pezzotti said. ‘For example, take ‘Locomotive’, which is on our last album. When I wrote the lyrics, I already thought it would be a good song to play live. When I was writing the chorus to it, I’d think: ‘This word would be good to sing to the crowd but this one, no. I think about the musical direction of the phrasing of the words. I never write the lyrics first, it’s always the music first. And after that, I think about the atmosphere I want the song to have and write about that.’

‘I painted a leopard print pattern on it with blue paint, I used a similar paint on my Flying V. I tried to convince also Lorenzo to paint his guitar, but he said no!’

When I saw them live, Pezzotti was playing a beautiful leopard print guitar and I ask him if it’s similar to the one he plays in their ‘Our Spacecraft’ video: ‘No, it’s not the same. I play, when I am in Italy, a Flying V because it’s my favourite guitar but the problem is that when you fly with the Flying V, you can’t cut the neck and the body of the guitar. And sometimes it is also dangerous to take your guitar on an airplane, you know? I have another guitar, a shitty 100 bucks guitar (laughs) and with that one, I can take the neck and the body apart and put it in my luggage between the clothes. That’s the one you saw at Hard Rock Hell, I painted a leopard print pattern on it with blue paint, I used a similar paint on my Flying V. I tried to convince also Lorenzo to paint his guitar, but he said no! (laughs). Poletti grins and interjects: ‘It’s too expensive to paint my guitar and I want my guitar clean!’

‘Down to the Rainbow’ is one of the most infectious songs on their album Black Snake (2018) with huge, gnarly riffs and it turns out to have a brilliant provenance, as Pezzotti explains: ‘I wrote that in 2015 after we’d been to play in California and we had the opportunity to meet Lemmy of Motörhead at the Rainbow Bar in LA just before we played the Whiskey a Go Go club. A few months later, Lemmy died and we thought: “Why not write a song about him?” So the song talks about the day we met him and we called it ‘Down to the Rainbow’ because we’d gone to the Rainbow Bar to drink.’ How was he when they met him? Pezzotti looks reflective: ‘You could see the pain, all his life, I think he drank a lot,’ he said. ‘He seemed older than he really was.’ Dossi nods in agreement. Pezzotti continues: ‘He was drinking vodka and orange and playing the slot machine.’

As the track goes: “Last night I met an old guy, blue suade shoes and no fear in his eyes. He is a rock ‘n’ roll man. He scares you, you have to respect him. He is a rock ‘n’ roll rebel. He is a rock ‘n’ roll rebel.”

‘I started playing the saxophone because of the movie The Blues Brothers’

Interestingly, they bring very different influences to the band: ‘My first big inspiration was Joe Perry (founding member, guitarist, backing and occasional lead vocalist) from Aerosmith,’ Poletti said enthusiastically. ‘And I would say Angus Young from AC/DC. I started playing when I was 13, I was very old,’ he quipped. ‘At first, I started playing the saxophone, not the guitar. I started playing the saxophone because of the movie The Blues Brothers. I wanted to become like “Blue” Lou Marini! I always wanted to play the guitar, too, because my father always listened to AC/DC – I was born listening to them, I’ve got AC/DC in my veins!’ Pezzotti is thinking. ‘As a guitarist, let me think.’ Poletti laughs: ‘Me?’ he asks jokingly and Pezzotti laughs: ‘Definitely AC/DC and I’m a big fan of Mötley Crüe. Mick Mars (their original lead guitarist), he was amazing!’ Montanari Trovesi cites Slipknot drummer Eloy Casagrande: ‘He’s Brazilian, I love him so much because he’s so powerful. He created a lot of Brazilian rhythms in the metal. For me, it’s so good.’ Dossi cites Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and Lemmy. Guns N’ Roses is the band that they all love: ‘There are a lot of different styles in our band,’ Poletti said: ‘I like the 60’s, so I love The Rolling Stones and The Doors.’ Pezzotti jumps in: ‘I listen to all kinds of music – folk, blues, hard rock and heavy metal.’

Pezzotti laments that there aren’t many hard rock bands in Northern Italy: ‘I really like Super Horror, though, do you know them?’ I say that I don’t. ‘They’re from Verona. Also Dobermann are good from Torino. Then there’s Speed Stroke from Bologna. In Italy nowadays, most of the bands play covers. When we play in Italy, not always, but most of the time, we have to play half of the setlist as covers, half of the setlist can be our original tunes. That’s when we started to play ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. We also cover ‘Venus’, ‘Ace of Spades’, ‘Born to be Wild’, ‘Paranoid’ by Black Sabbath and some AC/DC!’ Poletti looks at him: ‘Sometimes we do a Led Zeppelin song like ‘Whole Lotta Love’. Pezzotti is laughing: ‘With that song, sometimes I say: “No, no,” because it’s too high to sing (laughs). But I like to play, so I say: “Let’s play!” Sometimes when we play a full set, we have to play two hours. And after one hour and a half, I start to get *mimes pain* . I can play with the guitar for 10 hours but when you have to sing for over two hours, it becomes dangerous!’

If they could go out with any musician dead or alive, Poletti is quick to say Jim Morrison: ‘Because he’s my God, he’s been the biggest inspiration to me. I love him, so I have to choose him. I have him here, look (he proudly shows me a huge Jim Morrison tattoo on his forearm). I would tell him to stop doing drugs (laughs) or ask him how he wrote his songs – maybe the answer is drugs?! I would have loved to meet him, just to talk to him. I would say to him: “Can you suggest a rhythm for a new song for us?!”‘ Dossi wants to go out on the town with Slash: ‘Because you’d have a proper drink! I would tell him to stop smoking and drinking!’ Montanari Trovesi goes with Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against The Machine: ‘They were the first band I listened to as a kid. I was supposed to go and see them in Zurich four years ago but he broke his leg and the tour got cancelled, so my question to him would be: “When’s the next tour?!” Pezzotti picks Jimi Hendrix: ‘He’s a big inspiration to me as a guitar player and, like Jim Morrison, he’s not still alive. If I pick Mick Jagger, who knows, maybe one day it could actually happen? Maybe I will meet Jimi Hendrix in the sky?’

They’ve met some right characters along the way, especially at gigs, as Pezzotti recounts: ‘One of the funniest moments actually happened last Saturday night. After the show, while we were packing up our gear, a drunk guy came up to us and seriously asked if we could slap him in the face! He kept saying he had been bad in his life and deserved it. Of course we didn’t slap him but it was so surreal that we’re probably going to remember it for a long time!’

(Photo credit for HRH: Martin Turner)